This morning my daughter and I discussed her Instagram
habits.
I should say, I discussed them. She listened with the look
of someone who would prefer to dive into oncoming traffic. Which was her only
option, because we were in the car on the way to school.
Her Instagram isn’t bad. It’s not anything I love, but it’s
not bad. It’s mostly selfies, mostly tasteful, captioned with song lyrics that
lend towards power and rising above pettiness. She’s in middle school, so I
doubt she’s 100% successful at practicing what she preaches. But then again, neither am I.
As we neared the school and I saw my time running out, I
managed to encapsulate what I thought was the most relevant truth in a few
sentences. “Listen, it’s great that you have empowering pictures and that your
friends comment on how good you look, but I want your friends to know you’re
more than that.”
Cue eye-roll. “Mom, my friends aren’t going to write, you’re
a beautiful child of God with a purpose in an Instagram comment.”
“Fair enough, but you should have people in your life that
are saying that to you. You shouldn’t go through your teenage years thinking
the only thing you have going for you is that you’re good-looking. You should
have people telling you exactly that: you are a beautiful child of God with a
purpose. And that you’re smart and savage and fun and creative. That’s the
truth that lasts longer than you have a fine booty.”
(As an aside, I’m amazed I got this much out. I am terrible
at the deep talks with my kids. Days of planning and prayer yielded exactly two
sentences of relevant truth. Lord help my kids. By the time it’s over I’ll just
be printing brochures and leaving them on their pillows.)
She was quiet for a few minutes, and then opened up and
started discussing her classes and her teachers, which I took as a good sign.
(To teenagers reading this: we crave any information about your lives. We suck
it up like internet gossip and queso. The way to our hearts is
with data. Just talk to us and we’ll give you anything you want. We
are hostages to your innermost thoughts.)
Later, while praying, I asked that God would wiggle that
truth into her heart and let it rest there until it was needed. “Because God, she is a special piece of your creation with a specific plan and purpose.” And although I can guarantee that what I actually said to God wasn’t quite so
theologically scripted, it's what came to mind afterwards that was really
eye-opening.
Guys, we pipe that truth into our
kids like vitamins, hoping they grasp it as they grow older; but as adults, is it hidden in our own hearts? I
prayed for God to lock it away in my teenager, but is it locked away in me?
That precious idealism we want our teenagers to live by is often lost as we grow older. It gets buried under necessity and career
choice and family duties, all good things. The search for one’s calling is a
broad topic, one I have surrounded myself with for months as I’ve faced my own
miniature identity crisis. I ponder all of things I wanted to be as a teenager
and wonder where that optimism went.
We tell our kids that they are capable of anything.
We should be as kind to ourselves.
I’m not going to answer the question of what’s my calling today. For today, it’s enough to realize that God sees me and my teen with the
same eyes. To him, we are both lovingly made, carefully crafted beings, beloved
and empowered to soothe a hurting world.
I take the truth I spoke over her this morning, my prayers
for her to fly free and brave, and I whisper them to myself.
